Absolution

by Paul E. Hardisty

  After a while, he’d realised that he’d stayed too long. He’d made to leave, rowed to shore and said goodbye. Joseph had cried. Zuz just smiled. But Grace had taken him by the hand and walked him along the beach and to the rocky northern point of the island where the sea spread blue and calm back towards the main island, and she’d convinced him to stay.

  But now Clay shivered, watching Dreadlock move about the sailboat. The first drops of rain met the water, a carpet of interfering distortions.

  ‘Hali?’ shouted Red Shirt in Swahili from the jet boat. News?

  ‘No here,’ came the other man’s voice from below deck.

  ‘Is it his?’ said Red Shirt.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘It looks like his.’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘No guns? No money?’

  ‘Me say it. Nothing.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What we do?’

  ‘We find him. Let’s go.’

  The jet boat’s engines coughed to life with a cloud of black smoke. Dreadlock untied the line, jumped back aboard and pushed off. The boat’s bow dipped with his weight, then righted. Clay dived, watched from below as the craft made a wide circle around Flame, buffeting her with its wake, then turned for shore.

  It was heading straight for Grace’s house.

  26th October 1997. Paris, France. 17:35 hrs

  Still nothing.

  Today I did something I have never done before. I went into my husband’s office and looked through his things. I went through all the papers on his desk, the bookshelves, the filing cabinet in which he keeps his personal financial records, some files from past cases. I had to pry open the lock on his desk drawer with a screwdriver and a hammer. The desk belonged to Hamid’s father and is made of French oak. When I hammered out the clasp, the blade of the screwdriver splintered the wood of the drawer frame and cracked one of the front panels. I must take it to be repaired before Hamid comes home. If he sees it he will know I was spying. When we were first married, we agreed to trust each other completely. I have violated that now. God knows if I ever found him going through my office; I would be more than furious.

  Why am I feeling this? Under the circumstances, I am sure he would understand. It has been three days now, and still I have had no word from him.

  The police have assigned a detective to the case – Assistant Detective Marchand; an agreeable young lady who seems very junior, but is undeniably bright and enthusiastic. She came to see me this morning and I gave her recent photos of both Hamid and Eugène. This afternoon she contacted me to confirm that no persons bearing their names or matching their descriptions have been admitted to any hospital in France, nor have they reported to or been brought into any police station in the country. Our silver Peugeot has not been seen anywhere. She called me just now to tell me that they have also finished checking all outgoing passenger records from all the major airports and ferry terminals in France, and have found nothing. She asked me if their passports were still in the house. She also asked me if my husband had been having an affair. I was shocked. I know I must have sounded shocked.

  I found their French passports just now in the bottom drawer of Hamid’s desk, along with Eugène’s birth certificate and Hamid’s Lebanese passport. At least I know that Hamid had not planned to leave the country when he left for the office on Tuesday morning. This is a big relief to me. It should not be.

  In the same drawer, I found the deed to a life insurance policy. I knew Hamid – meticulous person that he is – had taken out policies on both of us, right after Eugène was born. The policy on my life is relatively small. His policy is significant: over a million euros in the case of death, with me as the beneficiary. I also found twelve hundred US dollars in one-hundred-dollar notes, over three thousand euros in mixed denominations, and a stack of Egyptian pounds worth about six hundred euros. If he had been planning to go somewhere for any extended period, especially if he did not want to be found, he would have taken cash. Whatever happened, it was not premeditated.

  I went through all the drawers in his desk looking for any signs of an affair. There was not a hint of feminine perfume – not even mine. There were no compromising photos or letters. I went through his bank statements looking for hotel or dinner charges, purchases from florists or jewellers or lingerie shops – any of the obvious things that he is intelligent enough to have avoided if he had been trying to hide something from me. I was shocked at the cost of the beautiful necklace he bought me for our anniversary, but it has only convinced me more that an affair is unlikely. Still, you never know these things. My aunt had been married to the same man for thirty years and then caught him being unfaithful with an older woman. The affair had been going on for more than three years.

  There was another thing the young inspector asked me: Did my husband or I have any enemies? She had done her research. She was aware of the columns I wrote last year about South Africa’s apartheid-era chemical and biological weapons programme – the ones I based on the information you sent me from Mozambique last year; the ones that led to the arrest and indictment of the head of that programme on charges of murder, embezzlement and extortion. And she knew about my role in exposing the Medveds’ corrupt operations in Yemen and Cyprus before that. She knew about all the stories that built my reputation – the ones we worked on together, chéri.

  This is part of being an investigative journalist, I told her. All of us in this profession must deal with the same threats, the social media bullying, the vilification, the accusations of bias and political motivation. As for my husband, he is a human rights lawyer, I said, I now regret, rather rudely. So what do you think? I added. Sometimes, I think I have started to speak as you do, Claymore.

  The inspector looked at me with a patience that belied her years. She showed no sign of being offended. I told her that Hamid had been doing this work for a long time, and while there had been verbal attacks and legal injunctions, there had never been a time when he was physically threatened. Not that he had told me about, anyway.

  Is there anything else, she asked me, anything at all that seemed strange or unusual? You would be surprised at how important the most seemingly innocuous observations can be in these cases.

  No, I told her. Nothing else. Even as I was saying it I knew I was lying. Because there is something else. Of course, there is.

  In the hours since Inspector Marchand left I have done nothing but pull apart and upend every detail of the last three days, until the whole of it has become nothing but a churned-up morass. And now, from this reduction, only the malaise remains. I cannot yet describe it, but I can no longer deny it. It has been with me for too long.

  So, for now, here are the possibilities:

  1) Hamid has decided he needs some time with his son, alone, and is ensconced somewhere in the countryside, in a Norman farmhouse or a villa on the Côte d’Azur – he has always loved those weekend getaway places. Perhaps the stress of the last few months has simply become too much. If so, why has he not called me? Does he think I would not understand?

  2) Hamid has run off with another woman. He has been having a secret affair and has decided that he can no longer continue our relationship. Being the Muslim man he is, he cannot bear to live without his son, and believes in his heart that he has a prior and unalienable right to custody of his male heir. But if so, would he not by now have had the courage and compassion to inform me of his decision?

  3) Hamid and Eugène have been in a car accident and are still undiscovered, perhaps down a steep embankment along a wooded country road. They are trapped or in pain, and are unable to walk to help. The reason for such a trip into the country may have been for reasons (1) or (2). If so, God help them, please. All is forgiven.

  4) Hamid has left the country, has taken Eugène with him, and for any combination of the reasons above is unable or unwilling to contact me. Even though the police say they have not been through any of the major airports, he is a very experienced interna
tional traveller and there are many places he might have crossed the frontier unchecked. If so, why would Hamid have left behind their passports and all that cash? This makes no sense.

  5) Hamid’s enemies have taken him and my son hostage, or worse. It sounds melodramatic even thinking it. But I know that his recent work has put him in direct confrontation with some powerful people in Egypt, including members of the government. He has been defending political prisoners accused of various crimes against the state, including Muslim activists. In January, he won a major victory – widely reported in the international news – which resulted in the release from prison of a high-profile environmental activist. Would the Egyptian government really resort to kidnapping a French citizen from his own home? I find this highly implausible. But if it is true, why no ransom demand? Unless of course, they have simply been murdered. God protect them and forgive me for even thinking it.

  6) Hamid and Eugène have been kidnapped or killed by our enemies – yours and mine, mon chéri. I can barely bring myself to write the words. Regina and Rex Medved are dead, their empire fragmented and dispersed. Whoever has picked up the pieces should be thanking us. Chrisostomedes, the bastard, has been politically disgraced and ruined financially. He is certainly spiteful enough, and kidnapping is his style, but I simply cannot believe that he would erode his remaining resources on a vendetta against me. He has many far more dangerous enemies. With people like him, however, you never know. The white supremacists of the South African Broederbond are a possibility. The last time I spoke to you, a little over nine months ago, you had just testified to Desmond Tutu’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where you revealed the full horror of the atrocities committed by Operation COAST during apartheid. I remember every word of our too brief telephone conversation. You were convinced that the Broederbond were hunting you down to exact revenge for this – and because of what you knew and had not yet revealed. That is why you sent me the information – the photographs and the notebook. I promised you I would write the story, Claymore, and I did. I hope you know, wherever you are, that I kept my word.

  I am just a reporter, and there are many others who have written about COAST’s activities since. So it does not seem plausible or logical that they would single me out. They cannot silence us all. And if they wanted to stop me writing about them, why not just threaten me, or kill me? And I have heard nothing since Hamid and Eugène disappeared – no demands, no threats. If anything has happened to them – it hurts just to write their names – because of something I have done, I will never forgive myself.

  7) Hamid knows he is in danger (from his enemies or mine), and has disappeared, perhaps to protect me. That is the kind of person he is: principled, self-sacrificing. But if this is the case, why would he take our son, and why did he not trust me to help him? He knows that I have experience and training in these matters and that I would be an asset to him. Why would he not confide in me? Together we are stronger.

  None of this analysis helps in the least.

  Please God, if you must take someone, take me.

  21:45 hrs

  Inspector Marchand has just telephoned. They have found something. She will not tell me what it is over the phone. I am to meet her at the police station tomorrow morning at eight. I have not slept for seventy-two hours. My heart is racing. I am going to take a sedative.

  * 2 *

  The Only Constant in Life

  Of course, it was the ultimate indulgence. Friends, lovers, family, people you cared for. They tied you down, kept you dependent, made you vulnerable. And worse, they paid for their friendship with vulnerability. When someone wants to hurt you, they target those you love most.

  There was no time to swim back to Flame. Grace’s house was a good three hundred metres along the shore. The jet boat was almost there now, slowing in the shallow water of the cove. Clay turned and made a straight line for the rocks of the isthmus, swimming hard. At the water’s edge, he pulled off his fins, mask and snorkel, and started barefoot through the rocks, breathing hard.

  Red Shirt killed the engine and the boat drifted towards the little white beach in front of Grace’s house. Clay upped his pace, sprinting now along the sand footpath that skirted the tree line. A sheet of rain swept across the island. He could hear Red Shirt and Dreadlock talking as they waded from the boat, gained the beach and started up the rock-edged pathway to the house, still apparently unaware of his presence. Red Shirt knocked on the door.

  At this time of day, Grace would still be at work, the children hunched over home-school lessons in the empty restaurant. Clay decided to keep to the trees, approach the house from the landward side, try to observe the intruders from close range. Rain sluiced from the palms, sheeted across the bay. He slowed, staying hidden. Red Shirt stood at the front door, knocked again. The door opened. Little Joseph, in shorts and a Manchester United t-shirt, stood in the doorway. Clay snatched a breath, stopped dead.

  He could hear Red Shirt speaking to the boy, then Joseph calling for his mother. But before she could come to the door, Red Shirt grabbed the boy by the hand, spun him around and put a knife to his neck.

  Clay’s heart lurched. From inside the house now, the sound of Grace screaming. Red Shirt kicked the door aside and disappeared inside. Dreadlock followed him, pulling a fighting knife from under his shirt.

  Clay didn’t have a choice. There was no time. He ran straight for the front door, burst in.

  The place wasn’t big. A sitting room at the front with a big couch and a little TV on a stand, a table by the door with an old-style rotary telephone on it – one of only two on the island. A doorway out back led to the kitchen and the children’s room. Clay stood in the doorway, dripping in his swimming shorts, unarmed. Red Shirt stood with Joseph clutched to his chest, the knife’s blade poised against the dark skin of the boy’s throat. A drop of blood kissed the steel. Grace was kneeling on the floor, tears in her eyes, her lower lip cracked and bleeding, her hands raised in supplication. Dreadlock stood above her, hand raised.

  Both men turned to face him, what-the? expressions on their faces.

  ‘Looking for me, gents?’ said Clay.

  ‘It’s him,’ blurted Dreadlock, glancing at Clay’s stump.

  ‘Ja, it’s me,’ said Clay, raising his open hand, and stepping towards Red Shirt and the boy. ‘So how about we just talk about this. No need for any trouble.’

  ‘Oh, no trouble, baas,’ said Red Shirt, a grin cutting his face.

  ‘Give me the boy,’ said Clay, ‘and we can talk.’

  ‘Oh, but we don’t want to talk,’ said Red Shirt. ‘We here to deliver a message.’

  Clay was within a long pace of Red Shirt and Joseph now. Dreadlock had moved away from Grace and was circling in towards Clay, crouching low, brandishing the knife in a right-handed dagger grip. Clay had a pretty good idea what the message was.

  He had learned, many years before, that the only way to win is to take the initiative and keep it. Hit first, hit hard. That’s what Crowbar – his platoon leader during the war in Angola – had drilled into them from the first day of jump school. Later, in prison in Cyprus, it had kept him alive. Red Shirt was closer, but Joseph was vulnerable. The slightest mistake and the boy’s throat would be opened. Dreadlock was coming at Clay from the side. Red Shirt was looking at his partner, trying to communicate to him with his eyes.

  Clay laughed, forced it out. ‘Why don’t you just tell him what you want him to do?’ he said, pushing a smile across his face. ‘Go ahead. I won’t listen.’

  The two men sent perplexed glances at each other.

  It was enough. Clay pivoted and burst low and to his left, caught Dreadlock’s knife arm in a vicious cross-body hammer blow, wrapping the stunned arm with his, and following a quarter-second later with a back-handed hammer fist to Dreadlock’s jaw. He felt the bone go, heard Dreadlock grunt and go slack. Then he stepped left, thrust out his hip and slammed Dreadlock to the floor, holding the outstretched knife arm as a pivot. Dreadlock tr
ied to roll away, still clutching the knife, but Clay brought his left shin down onto the man’s head and leaned in, pinning him to the floor. Dreadlock grunted as his broken jaw deformed further. Then Clay slammed the back of Dreadlock’s straightened arm down across his knee. Dreadlock screamed in agony as his arm broke. Clay let the shattered limb fall to the floor, grabbed the knife, and twisted back upright. As he did he brought his right boot heel down hard onto Dreadlock’s outstretched knee.

  It had all taken less than three seconds. Dreadlock lay whimpering on the floor. By now, Grace had managed to crawl away into the kitchen.

  ‘Now,’ said Clay, facing up to Red Shirt. ‘I’ll tell you what. You let the boy go, and you can deliver that message of yours. What do you say?’

  Red Shirt was backing away now, towards the kitchen, his knife still at the boy’s throat. He looked scared.

  Clay let Dreadlock’s knife clatter to the floor. ‘Look,’ he said, kicking it away. ‘I won’t hurt you. I know you’re doing this for someone. Whatever he’s paying you, I can pay you a lot more. I have cash, gold if you want it, out on the boat. Name your price. Please, just let the boy go.’

  Red Shirt’s eyes widened, considering this perhaps. ‘How much?’

  Rain hammered the roof.

  ‘Whatever you want,’ said Clay. ‘Name it. A hundred thousand?’

  Red Shirt’s eyes widened. ‘Dollars?’ he said.

  Clay nodded. ‘American.’

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’